


leave your broken windows open

by sleeplessmiles



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Can also be read as platonic I guess, F/F, First Meetings, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-TLJ, Pre-Relationship, Recovery, TLJ Spoilers, mentions of trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 12:12:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13247988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeplessmiles/pseuds/sleeplessmiles
Summary: Once the adrenaline from Crait wears off and everyone is resting, Rey is left alone with her thoughts. She's spiralling into her guilt, unable to process the magnitude and extent of everything that's transpired.And then, Rose wakes up.





	leave your broken windows open

**Author's Note:**

> Just quickly - there are some vague allusions to Snoke controlling Rey and to Kylo invading her mind. I don't go into it too much, but just be wary. 
> 
> Any and all mistakes are mine. If TLJ didn't use a beta reader then neither will I.

 

All things considered, it was bound to catch up with her eventually. 

It’s not like Rey hasn’t felt it coming, hasn’t felt the inevitability of consequences and trauma and the weight of her experiences barrelling along towards her with a vengeance. She’s not oblivious. So, she’s been staving it off the only way she knows how; the only way that's ever worked for her.

Distraction. 

She’s spoken to every Resistance member who’s approached her, smiling at all the right moments and nodding when it’s required of her.

She’s answered all of General Organa’s questions about actionable intel, distancing her emotions from what happened as much as possible and turning it into a simple report of the facts.

Most of all, though, she’s grinned to herself – something bittersweet unfurling in her chest – at the thought of how damn grumpy Han Solo would be at the state of his beloved ship right now.

The entirety of the Resistance is aboard this one, tiny craft, and while the reality of that is certainly depressing, they make up for it in the sheer amount of life force they’ve managed to cram into the normally cavernous space. Now, in the dead of night, it’s filled to the brim with fatigued rebels in varied states of unconsciousness – sleeping all curled up in corners, leaning against each others’ shoulders and sides, resting fitfully on bundled up jackets; finding comfort and respite in any way that they can. Leia and the few remaining from the leadership had been urgently discussing things in the corner earlier, but they, too, have since succumbed to their weariness, seeking out a spare corner in which to sleep. It’s a remarkable sight, and Rey imagines she’d delight in it so much more herself – the sort of childlike innocence of it all – if it were under better circumstances. 

So, yeah. She’s positive Han would’ve been grumpy as anything about it, but she also knows just how much the sight would warm his heart, too.

Maybe that’s the real takeaway here: hope amongst the carnage. 

(It _has_ to be.)

Of course, the downside of everyone now being asleep – the Crait adrenaline having well and truly worn off – is that save for Chewie and whoever’s taking first watch in the cockpit, Rey’s the only one left awake. It feels like the first time she’s had to actually _breathe_ since she found Finn on Jakku, but it’s also the first time she’s been utterly without distraction. There’s nothing here now but her, her thoughts, and the sleeping Resistance under her charge.

 _Fitting, really,_ she muses. A chance to watch over them and atone for how drastically she failed them earlier.

Swallowing down the now-familiar bitterness of shame, the twist of disappointment – the failure of which Luke spoke so much – she tries for what seems like the millionth time to focus on what’s important. What they still are. What she still has.

Lying on the floor next to where she’s perched, Finn stirs in his sleep. On Finn’s other side, Poe shifts a little, curling unconsciously closer to him. Rey exhales. 

_Yeah._

What she still has.

But then she casts her gaze over to her left, to where Rose Tico lies unconscious still, and the sharp reminder that this was a _good_ outcome, that Rose was one of the lucky ones, is enough to make her stomach turn.

Maybe she doesn’t get to just ignore the bad and focus only on the light – not yet, anyway. Maybe she hasn’t earned that privilege.

She’s shaking again now, hands trembling like they have been any time she thinks about any of it – everything that’s happened since Starkiller (hell, since _Jakku_ ), everything she’s seen and endured – and she frowns against it all, balling her hands into fists. Picking up one half of the fractured lightsaber sitting in her lap, she grips it tighter and tighter until the knuckles on both hands turn white with it, but still she tries to focus everything within her on the sensation, the intensity of it.

It doesn’t work, though. Despite her best efforts, her mind goes down the same track it’s been circling for hours.

(Could she have said something different? They’d fought together, almost as though they were on the same side for a moment. He’d even seemed a little receptive for a while there. Was there something else she could have said or done? Was there a chance to turn him, a window, but she missed it? Did her inexperience cost her? Or was the decision to even try in the first place just so monumentally stupid that she never stood a chance?)

Gritting her teeth, Rey shakes her head rapidly. 

Because deep down, despite the agitated thoughts and torturous _what-ifs,_ she knows that the latter is the ultimate conclusion. She knows it, a truth that’s settled into her very bones. Kylo Ren is evil, and he belongs with the Dark Side, and she was deluded to ever entertain otherwise. Too hopeful. Too blindly optimistic. None of them can afford her having that kind of lapse in judgement again. 

(She just doesn’t know who she is without the optimism, the compassion. She doesn’t know if she _wants_ to know.) 

There’s some loud snuffling all of a sudden, breaking Rey out of her thoughts, and she looks over to see Finn twitch a little in his sleep. He’s lying on his side, which is a departure from the flat-on-his-back ‘Trooper style she’d seen him in before – probably because of his still-healing spine, she realises with a sinking feeling – and yet he still appears rigid and tense and ready for action, but for the way his hand is flopped out, palm up, towards Poe. Her heart clenches at the sight.

_Finn._

Oh, Finn.

She’d missed him so much, hadn’t felt truly safe until she was back in his arms, but even as they’d spoken earlier she’d felt the burn of guilt, of shame, barely able to so much as meet his eye. How could she, when she’d given the benefit of the doubt to the man who did _that_ to him, who tortured Poe and murdered Han, who sat idly by while _she’d_ been –

No. 

Dropping the busted lightsaber, she squeezes her eyes shut against those memories, against the now violent churning in her gut at her complete lack of control; the way she’d been flung about, the way they’d – he’d –

Yeah, no. 

Not ready to face that just yet. 

She inhales shakily, trying to control her breathing; trying to think through the sudden spike in panic. 

 _Focus on the light, Rey. Look for the light._

The light.

The light.

_(Finn.)_

He’d been so eager to tell her about what she’d missed earlier once the danger had passed, animatedly launching into a wild account of everything that had happened since he woke up. Then Poe had wandered over too and they’d tag-teamed the story, each of them talking over one another and adding in details the other omitted. Even BB-8 chirped its own additions. The whole thing had made her feel _something_ so very intensely, and she’d been so worried it was some kind of jealousy – which would obviously be both absurd and unfair, since if anyone deserves to be universally loved and adored, it’s Finn. She believes in that with her entire heart.

But some time later, when she’d finally been able to place what it was that she’d been feeling, the yearning in her chest suddenly seemed so obvious. 

Familiarity. 

It’s the familiarity they have with one another. The being known.

She _aches_ for it.

 _(The belonging you seek…)_  

Blinking back frustrated tears, Rey looks to the ceiling to try to will them away, feeling her thoughts continue to spiral and spiral. 

 _Kriff,_ what is she even doing? What has she _been_ doing? She feels so much for these people – for her new friends, her new _familiar_ – and she just wanted to save them and keep them safe, keep them happy, but look what she did instead. Look at the devastation that was wreaked in her absence. Look what she could have maybe prevented if she’d only – 

‘Mmph, Finn?’

Rey startles so hard that the pieces of the lightsaber fall off her lap, clunking to the floor loudly and causing a not inconsiderable number of rebels to stir. But she barely registers it, barely even notices, instead leaning forward because Rose Tico is stirring too and blinking her eyes open and –

 _Wow._  

Her eyes. They’re… 

Rey swallows. 

_They’re beautiful._

‘You’re awake,’ she states, voice all croaky from lack of use, and she immediately chastises herself because congratulations, idiot, great first impression. She clears her throat awkwardly, glancing around, at a loss for what to do until she sees –

Water. 

Yes. 

She can do that. 

‘Here, have some water.’

Rose watches, wide-eyed, as Rey helps her sit up slightly to have a few sips before laying her back down again. Up close, despite the tired confusion there, her gaze is positively luminous. 

_Holy…_

Rey blinks through her distraction, setting the water back on the adjacent bench.

‘Um, right. Yes. I’ll just wake Finn – ’

 _‘– Finn,’_ Rose breathes out again, remembering, her gaze frantically searching around but then softening the instant she spots him, still gently snoring just a few feet away. She releases her breath, relief clear in her posture. 

The sight loosens some of the tension in Rey’s own chest.

 _She really_ does _care about him._

Buoyed by this, Rey leans over so that she can nudge him awake, but Rose notices it just before she does and shakes her head, lifting her hand a little. 

‘No no, don’t wake – just, let him sleep.’

Rey hesitates, recalling the way Finn had made her promise (‘Promise me, Rey. _Promise._ ’) to wake him if Rose regained consciousness. 

‘Are you sure?’ she asks. ‘You know, I basically had to threaten him with the Force to get him to sleep at all. He _really_ wanted to see you.’ 

Rose’s cheeks pink a little but still, she shakes her head. ‘He needs the rest more.’ 

 _(Good answer.)_  

Rey presses her lips together, but she gets it – gods, of course she does, she _agrees_ with it – so she sits back down. She’s all too aware of Rose’s eyes suddenly on her, studying her, but it doesn’t make her feel as uncomfortable as it probably should. It’s only fair, after all; she’d had hours to contemplate this sleeping girl for which Finn and Poe had had nothing but praise. Hell, just now she’d been unconsciously defensive of Finn, scrutinising Rose’s reaction to him without even realising it.

She’s owed at least as much scrutiny in return. She’ll gladly take it. 

Rose tilts her head a little, sluggishly blinking away the last dregs of her medicated sleep, and Rey can see it in her eyes when she finally puts two and two together, the dawning realisation. Her lips part, and Rey is definitely not looking at her mouth, and thinking about how pretty her mouth is, and how she doesn’t think she’s ever even _noticed_ anyone’s mouth before, not really, and how she’s all too aware that they’re actively _flying through space_ because her feet don’t really feel like they’re on solid ground, like she’s the very opposite of grounded, and –

‘You’re Rey,’ Rose says. ‘Wow. Oh, wow. Like, actual Jedi Rey.’ 

Oh.

Rey blinks.

There it is again. 

_Jedi._

The word has followed her since she came back from Starkiller, its purpose and responsibility weighing heavily on her shoulders. The whispers had only increased since she’d returned and brought everyone onto the _Falcon_. She’s damn near vibrating out of her skin with the wrongness of it all.

 _(They’re not all they’re cracked up to be,_ she’s wanted so badly to tell them, to grab their shoulders and insist until they _understand,_ damn it. _I’m not the hero you’re after. I can’t be. You just saw him._

_He’s **gone**.)_

But somehow, when Rose says it, it doesn’t feel like an expectation, a duty. When Rose says it, it doesn’t feel like a foreign mantle. 

When Rose says it, it feels like she’s being _seen._

The corners of Rey’s mouth tug up a little.

‘That’s me,’ she confirms, absently reaching out to adjust Rose’s blanket like she has so often in the past few hours. Rose glances down at her hand, a small smile spreading over her face, and oh stars, if Rey thought her _eyes_ were luminous, that smile is something else. Aware that she’s been staring for longer than is probably acceptable, she’s hit with a rush of self-consciousness, jerking her hand back and anxiously rubbing her palms atop her thighs. 

‘Um. How are you feeling?’ she blurts out.

But Rose just winces, and it brings Rey back down to the ground with a crashing thud. 

‘Mm. Sore. But I’m guessing that’s pretty normal when you … wait – where –?’ She cuts herself off as she seems to notice their surroundings for the first time, pushing herself up onto her elbows to get a better look at the sleeping rebels spread out around the cabin. Rey can only watch her, utterly transfixed by the way she seems to wear her every emotion on her face for everyone to see. She finds she can’t quite bring herself to look away; it feels almost disrespectful to not see her, hear her, the way she wants to be seen and heard.

Eventually, Rose glances back to her, an obvious question written in her expression.

‘Where exactly are we?’ 

‘We’re on the _Millennium Falcon_ ,’ Rey supplies. Rose’s eyes bug out. ‘As for where in the galaxy, well. That one’s a little harder to answer.’

Rose’s face is positively comical.

‘We’re – the _Millennium Falcon_?’ she hisses. ‘I’ve been asleep on the actual _Millennium freaking Falcon_?’ 

Rey smiles distantly. ‘The one and only.’

‘Wow,’ she breathes, awed, and Rey’s a little thrown off balance by it all, if she’s being entirely honest – the way that Rose is soft and gentle and passionate and genuine all at once, a little dorky and a lot unabashed. It’s way more than she’d been expecting, and she’s feeling such a fierce fondness towards this dogged and determined girl. She’s been feeling awfully fond about a lot of these new people, actually, but she knows for sure that none of _them_ have made her cheeks heat up the way they’re heating up now.

All of a sudden, the way Finn had carried on about Rose starts making a whole lot more sense.

Rey feels like something within her sort of clunks into place.

‘So,’ Rose begins, casual and conversational like she hasn’t been in a coma for the entirety of their knowing each other. Rey finds herself leaning forward in her seat a little. ‘Wanna fill me in on how I’m still alive? I mean, not that I’m not grateful, but…’

_Oh._

Rey’s heart sinks.

Right. 

Reality.

Where she doesn’t get the privilege of simply losing herself in conversation with beautiful people, where she has responsibility and consequence and guilt and –

She closes her eyes briefly, rolls her shoulders to try and jolt herself back to the here and now.

‘Uh – yes, yes of course. You must have so many questions.’

That earns her another glimpse of that brilliant smile. ‘One or two.’ 

Rey finds she’s smiling gently – despite herself, despite everything – when she continues. ‘Well, the abridged version is that after you… after _the crash_ , Finn dragged you out of the wreckage and back to the Resistance. Poe Dameron found a way out the back of the cave, we came to meet you, and, well. Everyone ended up here.’

‘He dragged me out of there? All the way back?’ Rose asks quietly. She shakes her head a little, disbelief or maybe a bit of awe, and her gaze drifts over to Finn again and lingers. 

(Rey knows the feeling.)

‘How, though? Did we – I mean…’ She trails off before looking back up at Rey, all tentative and – oh _no_ – hopeful, still hopeful, even after everything. Even despite what she’s about to hear. The sight brings a lump to Rey’s throat. 

‘Did we… win?’

The grave despair must be written all over Rey’s face, because Rose’s hopefulness trickles away just as quickly as it arrived. Rey misses it almost instantly. 

(How much, she wonders, would she give to be able to put it back?)

‘Worth a shot, right?’ Rose asks, her voice dull. 

Rey clears her throat, averts her eyes. Somewhere behind her, someone cries out in their sleep – just the once, just briefly, but the anguish in the whimper is enough to stiffen her spine. She’s keenly aware of how the atmosphere here has changed in the past few hours. Gone is the tentative relief of before, the giddy chatter; in its place exhaustion, fatigue, and agony, all settling in for the long haul.

Even understanding the mechanics of it as she does, it seems counterintuitive that they’re able to fly with this much grief hanging so thickly, so heavily, in the air. 

 _(One thing at a time, Rey.)_  

‘Luke Skywalker, he, uh, returned to help. He fought Kylo Ren.’

Rose’s eyes flutter shut briefly and she thumps her head back onto the pillow with a low groan. ‘Of course. Skywalker comes back and I’m unconscious. Just my luck.’

Absurdly, the beginnings of a laugh bubble up in Rey’s throat at that.

(Gods, she can’t speak for Rose but _her_ luck ran clean out somewhere in the snowy wilderness on Starkiller.)

‘You know, I’m really not sure that “luck” has much to do with anything lately,’ she mumbles. The good humour in Rose’s expression dies a little and she grimaces, fingers creeping up to play with a crescent moon medallion around her neck. 

‘Yeah,’ she breathes. Then, with a hum and a frown, she runs both hands over her face a few times. ‘Must’ve really been something though. Master Skywalker returning, I mean.’

It _was_ something. In fact, as it turns out, it was everything – all he’d had left. They just hadn’t known it at the time.

 _She_ hadn’t known it.

‘Yeah. Hey, can I get you anything else? Some more water, or – does anything hurt? I can wake Dr Kalonia, if you’d like.’

Rose narrows her eyes. ‘Just need rest, I think, but thanks. Oh, and congrats on the deflection, by the way. Real masterful. Jedi-level stuff.’ 

Rey winces. ‘Rose…’

‘How bad was it?’ she asks firmly, bracing herself.

_On a scale from one to ‘Luke Skywalker would still be alive if I had’ve just finished the kriffing job and put down Kylo Ren?’_

‘Maybe we should wait until you’re –’

‘– Rey.’

Rose’s face is sombre but she’s clearly determined, and Rey knows stubbornness when she sees it. Knows that Rose isn’t going to let this one slide. She firms her lips.

‘Luke… didn’t make it. He’s gone.’

There’s silence.

It’s the first time she’s really said it aloud, aside from a brief conversation with Leia. She didn’t want to fracture what little morale was being bolstered in this tiny space, and news of his death would have certainly done just that.

Judging by the way Rose’s face crumples, the way the air seems to be sucked out of their small corner, she’d made the right call. 

‘I’m sorry,’ Rose says, hushed and reverent, and Rey doesn’t doubt for one second that she truly means it. It does, however, take her way too long to realise that – 

Oh, kriff.

She’s saying it _to_ Rey. _For_ her. 

She’s offering condolences to her specifically, rather than just generally.   

He was the entire Resistance’s enduring hope, and losing him will be a massive blow to everyone, yet here she is: consoling Rey over a man she’s known for a week, and looking genuinely concerned for Rey’s wellbeing.

She’s…

Holy _shit._

Rey’s overcome with a wave of appreciation so strong she can’t even speak. She can only nod, feeling wholly undeserving yet humbled beyond words as the truth settles into her very being.

These are good people, here. These are good people, worth fighting for.

And she will fight for them.

She  _will._

(If only she could’ve actually _helped_ them though – if only she could help them _now_ , gods, even now, when Rose lies here injured and Finn fears it might all disappear if he shuts his eyes for too long and Poe twitches violently in his sleep and the rest of them – what’s left of them – how they cry out even in slumber and cling to each other in their grief and they’re hurting so, _so_ much and she can’t stop it, she doesn’t know how to fucking _stop it –_ ) 

Frowning intently now, Rey glances over at Finn.

 _(The light, Rey.)_  

‘Finn, he told me what you did – at Canto Bight, with the First Order. All of it. It was…’

 _Brave. Heroic. Everything I wish I could be_. _Everything I failed to be._

She swallows thickly, embarrassed at the overwrought tears now clogging her throat. ‘Thank you, Rose.’

Rose says nothing at first, leisurely following Rey’s gaze over to Finn and then back again, taking her time with it.

‘We just did what we thought was right in that moment,’ is what she says eventually, her voice quiet. ‘I’m sure you know the feeling.’ 

Something within Rey feels like it shatters.

Because she does. She does know that.

(She just isn’t sure it’s enough anymore.) 

‘I was with Ren,’ she blurts out, instantly hating herself for it. It feels like a betrayal to say it out loud. It feels like an admittance of guilt. Yet there’s a relief to it too, to finally, _finally_ speaking it into existence; making it real instead of some horrible, unending nightmare stuck on loop in her head. 

It happened. It’s real. 

Come what may.

She’s tearing up, bracing herself for judgement, for the whispers and suspicions that she knows, _knows_ have followed her around all night to come screaming back in, spitting in her face for it, but she needn’t have worried: Rose is just so _good_ , not reacting beyond past a slight widening of her eyes at the tears. She’s waiting patiently, _listening_ , and it’s so much more than Rey expected – so much more than she’s positive she deserves – that it’s utterly devastating.

Rey starts shaking her head. 

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to unload this on you. You’re still recovering, and –’

‘– Rey.’ Her expression is so open, so worried, that Rey makes a noise distressingly close to a sob. ‘Talk to me.’

(Maybe that’s the takeaway here: hope amongst the carnage.)

The floodgates never stood a chance. 

‘I was – while you were on your mission, I went to confront him. I thought I could save them – everyone here, I mean. I thought I could… _fuck,_ I hate him, _hate_ him,’ she’s growling now, voice cracking, teeth gritted against the overwhelming flow of tears and regret and agony, ‘for everything he’s done, for what he did to Finn, to-to Poe, to Leia, Luke – to _Han_ – to everyone.’ 

_To me._

‘I hate him.’

The terse silence that falls is punctuated only by her own heavy, anguished breathing.

‘But?’ Rose prompts, so gentle it aches.

Rey looks up at her sharply, desperate for something so far out of her reach that she almost cries out with it, with the sheer frustration swirling within her. Is it understanding? Absolution? Whatever it is, she doubts she’ll get it right here and now, doubts that something so radical could happen in these quiet moments, but she needs it so badly that she’s pushing through anyway, hoping on hope and reaching, reaching, reaching –

‘He was their advantage. Still is. I thought if I could just –’

‘Appeal to the good in him?’ Rose ventures.

A bitter huff of a laugh rips itself out of Rey’s throat, the sound entirely foreign to her.

‘Something like that. I thought that maybe if I could do that, take away their greatest advantage… _kriff_ , it all sounds so stupid and naïve now.’

‘I wouldn’t call it naïve,’ Rose counters, her voice unwavering, and the iron-like strength in it has Rey hanging off of her every word. ‘Rey. That’s not naïve.’

Rey twists her lips, uncomfortable. ‘You know, you don’t have to say that just to make me feel better.’ 

‘I know,’ she assures her. ‘But I mean it, Rey. Like, sure, maybe it was a longshot, but this whole rebellion is built on longshots. On hope. There’s nothing wrong with that.’ 

There it is again: that gentleness to her voice, that sort of soft understanding that makes Rey’s breath catch. It stops her roiling, chaotic thoughts dead in their tracks. She swallows. 

‘I think maybe everyone needed me here more,’ she replies, hating how small she feels. 

Rose shrugs. ‘Maybe. But maybe not. Look around you.’ She casts her gaze just over Rey’s shoulder, taking in the scene behind them. Rey finds herself doing the same, turning to look at the weary, ragtag bunch of survivors.

It really is quite something. 

‘We’re still here. Not as many of us, maybe, but we’re here anyway. And you too, Rey. You’re here. That’s all the hope we need.’

Is it, though? Can it really be all they need? Right now, she’s afraid of even closing her eyes to sleep. How can that be anywhere _near_ enough?

But looking at the unwavering belief on Rose’s face, Rey finds she can almost believe it.

‘Rey, I think you were exactly where you needed to be.’

Stars, she wants that to be true. She wants it to be true so badly.

‘You really think that?’ she asks, voice barely above a whisper.

Rose nods.

‘I really, really do. And listen, for what it’s worth? You don’t have to, I don’t know. Pretend that you have all the answers, or anything like that. You don’t owe that to any of us. It’s okay if you’re just… not okay. I know _I’m_ not. But that’s okay. You know?’

Wow.

Rey just sits there, stunned into silence by the stark reality of it, and she wants -  _needs_ \- to ask about Rose, to let her vent right back, but she's just stunned.

Because it’s true. She is not okay.

She is very, _very_ not okay.

Maybe it’s time to actually acknowledge it.

Everything she’s only just been keeping at bay and trying to ignore – everything she’s been outrunning – suddenly careens to the forefront of her mind, kicking up a stink and demanding her undivided attention. Rey almost slumps down from the weight of it all.

And she could tell Rose about it! Hell, she _should_. It’s what people do, right? They talk about this stuff with friends, and that’s what Rose is now, she’s realised. They’ve forged something here, in these quiet moments of the eerie space between battles, so it wouldn’t be weird or out of place. And it’d be so easy, too.

So why can’t she force the words out? 

 _I was tortured. They tortured me. I had no control of my body. My mind was invaded, over and over again. They both used me like I was nothing to them, to anyone._

_Maybe they’re right._

_Maybe I am._  

‘Rey.’

 _I put myself in a fucking casket and hand-delivered myself to_ him _, to a near exact replica of where he last tortured me, just to be tortured again, and it meant nothing._

 _‘Rey.’_  

She blinks out of her thoughts through suspiciously wet lashes, looks across at Rose. Rose’s mouth is a thin, determined line, fiery gaze boring into hers. 

‘I don’t know what happened to you in there, exactly, but whatever he did to you… he’s a bad person. _He_ is. You – you daring to entertain the alternative doesn’t make _you_ one.’

Rey presses her lips together, something like relief washing over her, but it still doesn’t feel quite right. It still doesn’t feel like absolution she’s earned. She wants so badly to believe it, _needs_ to, but she knows she has further to go yet.

(She fears it will take nothing less than destroying him to atone for her mistakes. She also hasn’t a clue what that makes her.)

‘You showed compassion, even when that was the hardest option. Even when it felt like a betrayal. That’s really… that’s something else.’  

But is there a time when compassion can’t be an option? _Should_ there be? She’s wanted him dead before, she knows that much – this isn’t the first time she’s felt like this. How can she keep choosing light when that exists within her? How can she continue to justify compassion in the face of so much darkness? It seems unattainable.

‘Hey,’ Rose murmurs, reaching out to tap her fingers on Rey’s knee – once, twice. When she removes her hand again, Rey swears she can still feel its presence there, a phantom weight tethering her to the here and now.

(She’d take it over the haunting memory of Ren’s ghost, any day of the week.)

‘It’s totally fine to keep everything to yourself, and obviously it’s up to you, but – you can tell me, if you want to. If you need to.’ She shrugs a little. ‘I’m just… I’m here.’

Oh, _stars._

Inexplicably, tears well up in Rey’s eyes. She blinks up at the ceiling to keep them at bay, laughing a bit at herself.

(It occurs to her, absurdly, that she’s going to need to get used to reacting to kindness. Seems it’s in no short supply around here.) 

‘I’m sorry, just – you’re being so kind. You don’t even _know_ me.’ 

‘Yeah, well.’ Rose sort of half-shrugs, smiling a serene, close-lipped smile. ‘Maybe I want to.’ 

And it’s soft, the way she says it. Fond. Warm.

Familiar. 

(Rey’s entire being feels like it’s flooded with light.)

‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ she murmurs.

‘I’m glad,’ Rose replies softly.

They lapse into silence – Rose watching her, Rey doing her very best to not watch her right back. This whole thing is a lot more personal than Rey’s used to getting with people she’s just met – or _was_ used to, anyway, before this whole thing began – and she suddenly doesn’t know where to look, what to do with her hands. Do they usually just sit in her lap like that? Doesn’t feel right. Maybe she crosses them over each other, or something. Are her fingers just kind of… slackened, like that?

Of course Rose picks up on it.

‘So,’ she declares leadingly, a coy expression on her face. ‘Finn told you _everything,_ did he?’

Now _that_ makes Rey grin. She glances over to where Finn is still snoring away, her eyes tracing his slumbering form with nothing but fondness. 

‘Well, I’m not sure it was everything, but it was quite a lot.’

‘Did he tell you about the falthiers?

_Yes. At length._

But something makes Rey bite her lip instead, change tack.

‘No, not really,’ she lies, not entirely sure why she does it, why that was her first instinct – not sure, that is, until Rose’s eyes light up, excitement and a soft sort of bliss taking over her expression.

It’s breathtaking. 

Rey feels her face warm again, her heart racing in her chest.

‘They were _amazing_ ,’ Rose gushes, and she’s bubbling over with passion but the sentence dissolves into a huge yawn. It’s an abrupt reminder of just how injured she is, how much she must have been swallowing it down for this whole conversation, and Rey’s cursing herself internally the second she realises it. Oh, gods – she probably has a million questions about her own injuries, and here Rey is, prattling on about her own self-inflicted dilemma. _Fuck,_ she is bad at this.

‘It was just so good, seeing them run free like that. Even if it didn’t last. You know? Just for that moment.’

Rey’s momentarily driven to distraction by the serene bliss on Rose’s face – _stars,_ she really is beautiful – and she almost wants to just let her keep waxing poetic about the falthiers, but she’s been more than selfish enough already.

‘Sounds incredible,’ she agrees. ‘But hey, why don’t you tell me all about it once you wake up again? You need to get some rest.’

As if on cue, Rose’s eyelids start drooping, although she’s clearly not going down without a fight; her eyebrows lift as she valiantly tries to remain awake and present. It’s so sweet, so awkwardly charming, that despite the pangs of guilt, Rey’s smiling again without conscious thought. 

(Wow. She is in _trouble_ here.)

‘So do you,’ Rose mumbles, accusation and admonishment all in one, and yeah, okay. That’s fair. She’s probably right.

But then, Rey knows what lurks behind closed eyes for her: cramped, claustrophobic spaces; hands, heavily restrained and useless; everyone she loves being obliterated in the endless chasm of space, one by one; bodily movement outside of her own control; pain in every inch of her being; pain _outside_ of her, seemingly connected to the very Force itself – and always _,_ always that snarling and emotionless visage of _him._ She barely restrains a shudder, shooting Rose a mild smile instead.

 _(Focus on the light.)_  

‘Maybe.’

‘‘S room here?’ Rose suggests sleepily, shuffling over a bit and patting the space next to her on the little makeshift bed. It takes Rey’s mind a moment to catch up to what’s being offered but when it does, her breath catches in her throat. 

‘Oh no, I-I couldn’t. You’re hurt. I’d…’ _Wake up screaming and scare the stars out of you. Or, arguably worse – wake up wrapped around you._ Her cheeks feel like they’re on fire. ‘I’d bump you, or something.’

‘Rey.’ They make eye contact. ‘There aren’t any more beds that I can see, there’s plenty of room here, and you’re exhausted.’

She’s not wrong. 

But even so, Rey winces, trying to delicately pick through how to word it before just giving up and having a crack at it anyway.

‘I think I just need to be alone with my thoughts for a while, actually.’ _To be sure that they’re mine._ She wets her lips. ‘Does that make sense?’

To her surprise, Rose becomes sort of melancholy, her hand creeping up to play with the charm around her neck again.

(Rey makes a mental note to ask about that once they’re both a little less haggard.)

‘More than you’d think,’ she murmurs. She rolls tentatively onto her side, eyes scanning Rey’s expression, searching. ‘Just… wake me up if you start to spiral again, okay?’ 

_Not in a million years._

‘Sure.

‘Liar,’ Rose accuses, smirking. Rey’s stomach flips at the sight.

‘Just get some rest.’

Rose hums, lips still curled in a delicate smile. ‘That depends.’

‘On?’ she shoots back, raising a brow.

‘Can you make some stuff float for me when I wake up?’

(The smile that splits Rey’s face feels _miraculous._ ) 

‘I promise to try my very best.’

Rose settles back into her pillow, eyes comfortably closed. 

‘Mmph. ‘S long as you’re still here.’ 

Something softens in Rey’s chest. ‘I will be,’ she promises quietly.

She thinks fleetingly of Kylo Ren – of his cutting taunts about how desperately she needs people, and how she’ll never, ever have them. How in that moment, in all their preceding encounters, it had felt almost like he’d been right. How returning here to intrigued looks and polite conversation yet pointed distance, to hushed whispers of _Jedi_ and _Skywalker_ , to Finn being so close with people she barely knew, felt like an uncomfortable kind of confirmation.

But now, she looks at Finn and Poe, who had gravitated towards her all night; who trust her to watch over them at their most vulnerable in slumber.

Now, she looks at the Resistance, who are strewn comfortably all about her ship; who are beaten down and battered and bruised but still here with her, still fighting, still believing. 

Now, she looks at Rose – Rose, who only beams back up at her; who invited her to share her pain so that she might lessen her load; whose eyes have slipped shut and yet she still manages to be utterly incandescent.

She looks at all of this, and she knows one, incontrovertible truth.

Kylo Ren was wrong.

‘I’m gonna hold you to that, Rey,’ Rose sighs, lips just barely moving as sleep finally comes to claim her once more. Rey feels warm all over, but it’s not only because of Rose this time.

Because she understands now. She finally gets it.

Luke had yelled at her to resist the darkness, to fight it, but that’s not entirely how this works. That’s not how they carry on. It’s not about resisting the darkness, blocking it out when it arises, but _acknowledging_ it. Accepting its necessary presence. It’s here, within each of them and through them and all around them, and it isn’t going anywhere. None of them get any say in that. None of them get any control over that. 

What they do have is a choice. Always, always a choice.

Rey had a choice with Kylo Ren and it didn’t pay off, but it’s like Rose said: they're still here. _She’s_ still here. She gets the choice again. That doesn’t make her compassion inherently wrong, only misplaced in this instance. 

She knows now that she can’t ignore the darkness - hell, she’s been trying all day and failed miserably at it. But she _does_ get to decide what to do with it.

She gets to choose light over it. 

She gets to make that choice, and keep making that choice. Over and over and over again. 

For as long as it takes, and then even longer. 

_(Focus on the light, Rey.)_

Gazing down at the now-sleeping Rose, Rey allows herself another small smile. She lets it _all_ flow through her and around her – the good, the bad, the balance – before it settles peacefully into her chest.

Yeah.

Her world just got a whole lot lighter.

And now? She needs to go find some things to float.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Honestly, I was so looking forward to writing a whole lot of recovery fic after the film, but that was before I realised it'd involve working out like........ what the hell happened in their character arcs/to their characterisation lmao so this has been a fun exercise in screaming into the abyss. I'd love to actually work through Rey's trauma, since this only really covers her learning to acknowledge it, and of course Rose's as well, but we'll see how I go.
> 
> Few things:
> 
> \- I'm on tumblr as @imperfectlychaotic, where I'm still yelling my way through my, ahem. Feelings. On the film. So come say hi!!
> 
> \- Title is from Coldplay's 'A Head Full Of Dreams' 
> 
> \- Haven't written in a while so........ let me know if you enjoyed it???? but please be gentle I Beg
> 
> Thanks again for reading!!!!


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